read a word.

Glyn closed the leaf again and tried to read once more, but with very
little success; but for some reason or another his interest was more
deeply excited, and he doubled two more leaves over so as to hide the
writing, drew forward the foolscap paper to place it once more on the
blotting-pad, and then began to read hard at the first section, trying
the while to forget all about the freshly blotted letter, but in vain.

For two questions very different from Mr Morris's kept on appealing to
him, neither of them algebraic or dealing with Euclid. One was, "How
came that letter to be blotted on my pad?" and, "Who was it that wrote
it?"

There was no answer; but the boy felt that he knew enough about one of
Mr Morris's questions to begin to write the answer, and over this he
had been busy for about ten minutes when another question flashed across
his brain: "Was this the letter of which the Doctor spoke?"

CHAPTER THIRTY.

BROUGHT TO BOOK.

Not until late that same evening did Glyn have an opportunity of
investigating the mystery, for he had purposely refrained from making a
confidant of Singh; so that it was after the latter was asleep that
Glyn, rising softly, went over to the dressing-table and there lighted
the chamber candle, which stood at the side of the looking-glass.

"Will it be too blurred?" he thought, and he held up in front of the
mirror a piece of blotting-paper, and then started, for the occupant of
the other bed stirred slightly, causing Glyn to step cautiously to the
side of the sleeper.

"He won't wake," muttered Glyn, and he went back to the table and
recommenced his task, to find that with the aid of reflection the
written words on the spongy surface of the blotting-paper stood out
fairly plain, though there was a break here and there. And this is what
he read:

"_it was g----ern oo thev the princes_--"

Then there was a blurred line where the ink had run, with only a letter
or two distinct at intervals. Then half a blank line, and then, very
much blurred and obscure, more resembling a row of blots than so much
writing:

"_e as idden--sum whare--for sertane_."

Another line all blotted and indistinct; then:

"_umble Suvvent,--Wun oo nose_."

Then a line in which so obscure and run were the letters that minutes
had elapsed before the reader could make out what they meant:

"_toe the doktor_."

Glyn drew back from the glass as if stung, and then the question which
c